More sports stupidity

I meant to write about a stupid sports article I read a few weeks ago in the NY Times (it appeared the day before the Buffalo game). And in light of recent events, it seems even more stupid now. "Sports news" has this tendency of becoming almost instantly obsolete. In general, I don't read sports news. I think it's the biggest waste of time created by man (because it's so cliche-ridden, I think of it as "romance fiction for men"). If you didn't see the game, what are you going to get from reading an article about it? Surely, an article written after the fact can't begin to capture the excitement of the actual game. If you did see the game, what's the point? Are those handful of sports cliches uttered by the players and coaches really going to give you some special insight? I would be perfectly happy if the sports section consisted entirely of game scores, stats, and current standings only. All the "reporting" and "color commentary" adds absolutely nothing to the game.

The title of the article I read was: "It's Time Manning Plays His Hand." Like other NY sports lightning rods before him (Alex Rodriguez and Darryl Strawberry are a couple others who come immediately to mind), Eli Manning is making people crazy. When a New York team doesn't instantly fulfill its destiny of winning a championship, the crazed fans and "sports journalists/analysts" begin to look for a scapegoat (and with football it's always going to be the quarterback). It then becomes the sports writer's duty to feed this frenzy. William C. Rhoden, the author of the article, gives it his best shot. According to Rhoden (and the lunatic fans he represents), Manning is overdue: "Problem is, after four years, hoping is not good enough." Note the ridiculous sense of urgency (and the conspicuous absence of the fact that it took Peyton Manning five years before he won his first playoff game); you can always count on sports writing for this inane quality.

Next he boils the Manning dilemma down to this simple question: "Can he or can't he?" Of course the quarterback's performance is important, but to lay the entire responsibility of a football team's success on one player is absurd. There are so many factors that can contribute to a team's lack of success in a game (including chance and luck which no sports writer in his right mind would ever mention) that pinning the blame on one player is just plain lazy. It's the dumb sports nut's easy out. You can hear these morons 24/7 on sports radio: "If they only got rid of..." is their mantra. All of these deluded geniuses are convinced that if only they were calling the shots, the championship would be a cinch.

But this isn't enough nonsense. Rhoden's got to finish with a flourish: "Giants fans continue to give Manning a hard time, but in many ways he is a symbol, a product of his generation. This is a generation whose competitive spirit has been compromised by commercialism, new media exposure and escalating compensation." He also goes on to say how "each generation seems to get a little softer" (wow, I've only been hearing that one since I've been alive). See what I mean about how worthless this garbage is? But you see it all the time in the sports media. When I read or hear one of these windbags making judgments about a man's character or "what is in his heart" based on how he plays a game (a game most of us stop playing when we're children), it makes me want to puke. Before his career is over, I hope Eli Manning gets the chance to give all these douche bags the Goose Gossage treatment (thank you, Tinsel and Rot) they so rightly deserve.

Meanwhile, I'd like to take this opportunity to send out a special "Fuck Yeeeeeeeeeeew!" (thank you, Xmastime) to Curt, Terry, Howie, and Jimmy, the four brain dead robots who for the past two weeks obviously ate up all the sports media crap about Manning before unanimously picking Tampa Bay and Dallas. I'm sure they'll all be in agreement again this Sunday when they pick Green Bay over the Giants. Great! It will give Manning yet another chance to stick it to the "negative motherfuckers" who think they know what's in his heart because of the outcome of a game.